Components maker's closure to cost hundreds of jobs

New Castalloy factory at North Plympton will be wound down with hundreds of job losses

Wheel maker New Castalloy is to close its Adelaide foundry with a loss of up to 200 jobs.

The company at North Plympton is a fully-owned subsidiary of United States motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson.

The Australian Workers Union (AWU) says the plant will wind down its operations over the next 18 months.

I would expect that the news would be coming as a devastating blow to many of these workers who have worked for the company in excess of 25 years

Union official Peter Lamps

Union organiser Peter Lamps says the decision has been made by the US board that the Adelaide plant is no longer viable.

"I would expect that the news would be coming as a devastating blow to many of these workers who have worked for the company in excess of 25 years in various forms of its life in Australia, first of all as Castalloy and then as Ion Limited and in more recent times as New Castalloy," he said.

Mr Lamps says the closure news is a huge blow for workers, coming just before Christmas.

The AWU understands these decisions are made in the boardrooms of America of which certainly neither we nor the workers really had much input into, so it's very difficult to try to convince others when decisions are made clear across the other side of the globe."

SA Industry Minister Tom Koutsantonis says the State or Federal Governments would have helped keep the foundry operating but neither was asked for support.

Pat Sweeney from Harley-Davidson says it would not have changed its decision.

"When we talk about cost competitiveness it's more than, you know, getting assistance and government incentives. You know, that type of support would not have been enough to be able to address the gaps that we had identified and needed to address," she said.

SA Employment Minister Tom Kenyon says New Castalloy workers will be eligible for up to $10,000 of training support as they find new jobs.

"There will be jobs available in mining, there will be jobs available in defence and all through the economy people are screaming out for workers and we will need to make sure they're adequately trained," he said.

"We will do that. The Federal Government will assist with that as well but there will be no shortage of training and there'll be no shortage of funding for that training."